THE VELVET REVOLUTION IN ARMENIA IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF HANNAH ARENDT’S POLITICAL THEORY

Abstract

This research paper critically analyzes the 2018 Armenian Velvet Revolution, examining its non-violent nature and impact on society. This paper is written largely on the basis of my master’s thesis at the European University in St. Petersburg, which I defended in 2023. The paper consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to the events preceding the Velvet Revolution in Armenia and is written primarily from the perspective of the history of public protests in Armenia. The second part contains reflections on the revolution from the perspective of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy and political theory.
Assessing the revolution through the lenses of two models – the destructive French and transformative American Revolutions – it explores the revolution’s alignment. Despite initial optimism, the post-revolution period reveals declining political interest amid external crises, raising questions about the sustainability of change. The task will be to formulate Hannah Arendt’s vision of the political as a sphere of common life and to see why, in Arendt’s perspective, it is revolution that contains the true spirit of the political, why it is revolutionary enterprises that contain the charge that will restore politics to its true meaning, to see to what extent Arendt’s vision is idealistic, utopian or on the contrary, it allows us to see and grasp what otherwise would have been missed, the spirit that was contained and actualized in the Armenian Velvet Revolution, even if it was lost later on.